Abstract

Measurements of the switch-on time of an injection-seeded laser can be used to detect weak optical signals.¹ The switchon time is the interval of time the laser intensity takes to reach a prescribed reference value, which we take as 2% of its value in the on-state. The detection of weak optical signals has been demonstrated experimentally by measurements of the statistics of the initiation time of an Argon laser-pumped ring dye laser under the influence of an attenuated He-Ne laser acting as an external field.²

© 1994 IEEE